Fix My Feet When They're Stumblin'

Chapter 16

    With a sigh of relief, Ronnie grabbed his brand new grey crutches and hobbled through the door with a three week prescription for pain medication. Finally, after more than an hour's journey down the mountain on stretchers carried by police mules, and another hour back to the city in ambulances, they had made it to the hospital. The paramedics had sedated Brandon for the trip, not wanting him to wake distressed at all the activity around him. Ronnie's ankle had been x-rayed, set and casted, and although the doctors had suggested he stay the night for observation, he had refused and promised to stay hydrated and rest properly on his own. Ronnie just wanted to be with his wife and friends right now, more than anything.

    Unexpectedly, Olivia waited in the hallway for him and his heart leapt at the sight of his favorite person. Seeing his wife for the first time since their disastrous hike, he fumbled his crutch and dropped it in surprise. It clattered to the floor, forgotten, as Ronnie held out his free arm and was rewarded with a bone-crushing hug. Olivia melted into his arms and buried her face in his dirt-streaked shirt, her body wracked with sobs, and suddenly Ronnie was crying, too, hugging her like his life depended on it. "G-God, Ronnie, I was so scared," she whispered into his chest.

    "I know, baby, I know...me too. I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life. I thought maybe we were both gonna die up there. I couldn't...I love you so much, God, it feels so, so good to see you and touch you, Liv. I guess it was only a day but it felt like forever, in the worst way possible."

    She just nodded into his chest while she hugged him, squeezing her eyes shut. Taking a deep breath, she pulled away and wiped her eyes, then looked up at him and giggled. "Ronnie, honey, you're a mess. We've gotta take you back to the hotel and get you cleaned up."

    Ronnie grinned mischievously. "Oh yeah, you wanna help with that?" He leaned down and kissed her gently, wrapping his arm around her, but suddenly lost his balance and fell forward into her, knocking her off balance as well with a gasp. He braced himself against the wall behind her, the breath knocked out of him. "Ohhh...maybe not such a good idea right now, I'm not used to these damn things yet," he laughed, waving his hand at the abandoned crutch on the floor.

    Olivia giggled again, leaning to retrieve the crutch and handing it to him. "Maybe not."

    "I don't wanna leave yet anyway, how's Brandon?"

    She shrugged, examining her shoes. "We haven't heard much yet. They took him back for tests and they haven't told us anything yet."

    "Where's everybody waiting? We should be there, at least for a couple hours, and then I promise we can go back to the hotel and rest."

    Ronnie followed his wife to the hospital waiting room, packed with The Killers' road crew and Brandon's family. He made his way toward Tana and was greeted with enthusiastic cries of "Uncle Ronnie!!!" as her children caught sight of him. He fell heavily in the empty chair next to his friend's wife with a sigh, Olivia settling in the chair on his other side.

    Ronnie had barely leaned his crutches against the metal arm of his chair when he felt a hand on his forearm and looked up, surprised. "Ronnie..." Tana barely finished his name before she became choked up, bright tears in her eyes, and she cleared her throat with an impatient shake of her head, clearly tired of crying. "Thank you so much, Ronnie, for taking care of him. I don't care what you might have said to him, I meant what I said, Ron - there's no one I'd rather have with him. If he'd...well, if he'd been up there with anyone else, this whole thing would have been so much more stressful than it already was...but we knew he had you with him and we knew you were gonna do everything you could to keep him safe, out of everyone in the world he could've been stuck on that stupid mountain with. Just...thank you, a million times."

    Unable to meet her eyes and be forced to see the gratitude there, Ronnie just nodded and smiled, the warm feeling spreading in his stomach fighting with the angry, squirming snake of guilt. He couldn't forget the way he had initially treated his friend, so seriously injured and yet desperately concerned with Ronnie's own welfare instead.

    The most important consideration taken care of, Tana turned to updating the new arrivals. "While you guys were gone, they came back and asked my permission to do surgery. Brandon's got a compound fracture of his shoulder blade and they need to fix it. Apparently, it's one of the hardest bones in the body to break...go figure," she added with a small, shaky smile, then glanced down to consult notes she had taken in her phone. Beside her, Ammon, Gunnar and Henry conversed quietly among themselves, laughing and gesturing enthusiastically.

    "And he has three broken ribs, and they said they did a CT scan and he's got something called...it's a basilar skull fracture, and probably some sort of traumatic brain injury but they said those don't usually show up on their scans and they don't know what's damaged or really how bad it is. Like...they don't know what kind of...problems...he's gonna have or how long they're gonna last, they said it might be weeks for some stuff or months or - or years or even...or even maybe f-forever, it's different for everyone and there's no way to tell if something is temporary until it goes away."

    She swallowed and paused for a long moment, and then continued. "But, um...they said the fracture is actually good in a way because it relieved the pressure and the swelling of his brain, and that there's nothing that needs to be done to fix it, they just stapled his head back together and that's it, I guess. I guess usually people with brain injuries have issues with balance or tolerance of light and sound, or their memory doesn't work right, or they don't really understand when you talk to them, or they have trouble responding, or they just have these horrible headaches and they're tired all the time, or they lose their coordination, or sometimes they get really angry or really sad...there's just so much, Ronnie."

    They sat in silence for a minute, processing, and then Ronnie's thoughts were interrupted by a soft voice. "Uncle Ronnie?" Gunnar, Brandon's middle son, sat nearest to Tana holding up a plastic bag full of Sharpies. "Is it...can we sign your cast? Please?" He sounded nervous to interrupt the adults' conversation, but Ronnie's heart melted.

    "Oh, of course!" Ronnie reached down and removed the Velcro boot over his cast, exposing all of the white plaster that encased his foot and calf. "Go for it, please! I would be honored."

    "No peeking, Uncle Ronnie," the youngest, Henry, told him seriously. The three boys gathered on the hospital floor near Ronnie's feet and each pulled several different colors from the bag, giggling to themselves as they wrote and colored all over his cast, doing their best to shield Ronnie's view with their hands.

    Several minutes passed, the adults lost in thought and the children consumed by this new task, before Ammon announced, giggling, "Okay, we're done, you can look now!"

    Every available inch of the blank plaster canvas had been covered in bright colors - little stars and swirls filling the spaces between doodles of Spiderman playing drums, a bearded Superman, Batman labelled 'Uncle Ronnie' and Robin labelled 'Dad,' even a miniature Jedi Ronnie armed with a green lightsaber. Scrawled boldly across the front of the cast, the words 'THANK YOU FOR SAVING OUR DAD, UNCLE RONNIE!!!' blurred beyond recognition as tears came to Ronnie's eyes.

    "Oh, I didn't s- " Olivia elbowed him gently in the side and he recovered, deciding that no, denying it was probably not the best course of action, no matter how he felt. "I mean, I didn't expect that! This is so sweet, it's awesome! Thank you so much, you didn't...oh, come here, guys." All three boys piled into his lap as best they could for a group hug, arms wrapped tightly around his neck and chest, and the old hospital chair creaked at the extra weight.

    "Thank you, Uncle Ronnie. We still have our dad because he was with you," Ammon whispered into his ear, grinning broadly through tears of his own.

    "Anytime, kiddo."